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LGBT community weighs in on redistricting

2011-07-21T01:46:49Z

When is comes to redistricting, the LGBT community has a lot to say about being recognized as a legitimate community of interest and working toward getting the central city united into one council district.

“Unless you see yourself represented, it’s hard to see yourself in the world,” said Steve Hansen, a community activist and a member of the former Citizens Advisory Committee on Redistricting.

Hansen and Rosanna Herber, chairperson of the LGBT Redistricting Committee, said members of the LGBT community worked tirelessly over the last several months to be recognized as a community of interest and be given a stake in the process. Their goal has been to finally see the central city united.

“We are a very diverse city,” Hansen said, “and our strength comes from that diversity.”

The LGBT Redistricting Committee was made up of representatives of the Sacramento Gay & Lesbian Center, the Rainbow Chamber of Commerce, the Stonewall Democratic Club and other LGBT community leaders.

Herber said the group attended advisory committee meetings and testified before the committee at every opportunity.

“The common theme (of our testimony) was that a majority of our community live in the urban core and we don’t want to have it split any longer,” Herber said.

There are approximately 31,000 people in the grid which is shared by three council districts, Hansen said, and “(the people in the grid) have have a lot more in common with each other than the people in Natomas (who share a district) have with them.”

The standard of “one person, one vote” includes the notion of not diluting the electoral power of groups of people that have historically been subject to discrimination. By splitting the central city, Hansen said, that’s exactly what happens.

“The neighborhoods in the central city have been sliced and diced so much,” Hansen said. “The people there have no real electoral power.”

People in the grid share a common geography, a common cultural landscape – and common issues, Hansen said. People in other areas ignore those issues because they aren’t as affected by them.

Homelessness is one issue that Hansen said has been allowed to persist in the grid for so long because the majority of voters in each of the three districts that contain part of the core live outside that central area.

“Ultimately, none of the people who vote have any skin in the game,” Hansen said. “As long as the problem stays out of North Natomas, East Sacramento, Land Park or Curtis Park, people are perfectly fine with that.”

Hansen said that, although he feels the elected representatives do try, “ultimately their concerns are going to be concerns from where the majority of the (voters) are.”

“It’s political economy,” Hansen said.

From the LGBT point of view, it is important to have the ability to elect the candidate of their choice, Herber said.

Historically, there has never been an openly LGBT person elected to the City Council and Herber said, if there is ever going to be one, “we have to have our support united.”

“It’s one thing to have someone relay your concerns, but it’s better when they share your concerns,” Hansen said.

The advisory committee recommended four maps to City Council for redrawing district lines. Three of the maps unite the central city into one district.

“In the past, it doesn’t seem anyone was held responsible for redistricting, so we got lines that weren’t necessarily fair, they reflected the whims of the council,” Hansen said.

During the process, Hansen said his role on the advisory committee was as “a person who cares about the city,” and not as a representative of any community or organization.

“I was primarily concerned about the legitimacy of the process,” Hansen said. “I challenged the committee to remember that the public is watching us and they would hold us accountable.”

Hansen said that, after hearing all the public testimony, the advisory committee understood that there wasn’t a good justification for the central city to be broken up.

“We had to keep asking, ‘What’s best for the city? How do we do right by our communities?’ “ Hansen said.

Sara Freid, Interim Executive Director for the Sacramento Gay & Lesbian Center, said the response from the advisory committee to their testimony throughout the redistricting process was “positive and encouraging.”

“I feel like they listened to us,” she added. “It’s nice to be heard as a community.”

The LGBT Redistricting Committee will go to City Council Tuesday and participate in the public discussion on redistricting again, Herber said.

“We are going to ask the council to do what the advisory committee did,” Herber said. “Respect the LGBT community as a community of interest and see where our community lives, and keep the central core together.”

Hansen agreed.

“It’s the fair and just thing to do to make sure that the LGBT community – as a legitimate community of interest – is not just recognized by the process, but respected by it,” Hansen said.

The City Council has until about Aug. 26 to decide where the new district lines will be drawn.

Melissa Corker is a Staff Reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.

Taking the politics out of redistricting

2011-07-13T06:36:18Z

When the Citizens’ Advisory Committee on Redistricting handed over its final recommendations to the City Council on Tuesday, the real work began on shaping the city for the next 10 years.

Council members were given four maps to choose from, two of which potentially pit council members against each other for control of a single district.

Whatever decision the council members make, they won’t have another opportunity to change district lines until the redistricting process begins again in 2021.

In January, the advisory committee began reviewing 37 maps submitted by Sacramento residents for redrawing district lines. By the end of June, the committee members narrowed the field to the final group of four.

“We’re going to have some tough conversations,” said Councilman Steve Cohn in an interview Monday. “It isn’t going to be easy, but it will get done, and it will get done right.”

Cohn, who represents District 3, is one council member who faces the possibility of a district line shift that would combine his district with that of another council member, Sandy Sheedy.

“It’s not about what I want for me,” Cohn said. “It’s about what’s best for the people I represent. Do I want to stay on the council? Yes, I do. We all want to keep representing the people in our districts. But we have to look at all of the options and see what’s best.”

In the other potentially contentious scenario, Districts 4 and 5 would be redrawn, putting either Rob Fong or Jay Schenirer out of a council seat.

“I think that we actually have a very collegial group,” said Fong, “and I can’t imagine that we’d be looking to adopt any map that would ‘redistrict out’ any of our current colleagues, but we haven’t really had any discussions about it.”

Fong said the biggest challenge will be honoring redistricting laws as well as the neighborhoods and the communities of interest to see if they can make everyone happy.

“I don’t know if we can,” Fong said. “It’s a bit of a Rubik’s cube, but that’s the challenge in front of us.”

Mayor Kevin Johnson praised the work of the advisory committee at his press conference Tuesday and said that having a citizens’ advisory committee “removed the politics” of redistricting from council members and let the citizens do what they think is in the best interests of the community.

“That’s good government,” Johnson said. “That’s transparency.”

Johnson said at the council meeting that the final recommendations from the advisory committee show an attempt to keep neighborhoods “whole,” or as close as possible without a lot of deviation.

“(The advisory council) did it with a blind eye,” Johnson said. “They didn’t care who was incumbent, and they didn’t care about (district) lines. It was only about neighborhoods and communities of interest.”

Maya Wallace, 33, is an auditor for the Bureau of State Audits who served as an at-large appointee on the Citizens’ Advisory Committee.

“It was fairly challenging,” Wallace said. “I felt that we needed to ensure that the process was open and transparent, and we wanted to do this in a way that was objective.”

Wallace said she wasn’t prepared, however, for the lack of knowledge she had about the politics behind the process.

“We really needed to be sensitive to the community’s concerns, especially their concerns about the process,” Wallace said.

Bill Magavern, 51, an advocate from the Southside Park neighborhood, asked the council Tuesday to choose the final map from the among the four maps the committee recommended.

“If you were to throw out (the committee’s) maps and cobble together one of your own,” Magavern said, “I think you would lose a lot of credibility with the public.”

Johnson said he hasn’t yet formed an opinion for his preference of any of the maps, but he said that he is “all in favor” of choosing one of the maps from the advisory council.

“It will validate all of the time and effort that we asked (the advisory committee) to put forward.

“If we start tampering with it,” Johnson added, “then that dilutes the process, and it’s not as authentic as citizen involvement should be.”

The questions is: Will the final decision reflect the community’s best interests – or the council’s?

“Hopefully we’ll do what’s true and respectful to the work that (the advisory committee) has done,” Johnson said.

The City Council has until Aug. 26 to make a final decision on how the new city district lines will be drawn.

Melissa Corker is a Staff Reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follwer her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.